Ask HN: Could experienced developers have near 0 online prescence? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Could experienced developers have near 0 online prescence?

The conventional wisdom for getting job leads as a new grad and early career is to go to job fair, have a portfolio and open a LinkedIn account. These things allow the prospective employers to see your work or to reach out to you.

The experienced folks don't necessarily attend in-person events, may not keep their LinkedIn profile up-to-date and may not have a website at all. Some don't event have LinkedIn at all. They could be very choosy for in-person events because they take time out of their day: Many have family commitment. They have established their (offline) reputation to the point that their work speaks for itself.

My goal is to have the least amount of info out in public when possible: Social networks for offline friends, family and close colleagues only. Somehow I don't feel that I'm at a point in my career that I can ditch all my online presence and still get job leads.

View on HN

I am approaching 20 years at the same company. Nothing I write for work can be taken and posted publicly. If a future employer wants to see examples of my work, I’d really have nothing to show them for that reason.

The only thing I do on LinkedIn is occasionally update my job title, if I get a promotion. I have a GitHub account, but there is nothing of value there and almost no activity. I’ve dabbled in blogging, but nothing if ever point anyone to.

If having a strong online brand is required for getting a new job, I just won’t get a new job I guess. Lucky for me, my old manager has told me I have a standing offer wherever he is working, if I ever want to leave where I’m currently at. I’ve had a couple other former co-workers reach out as well. I think those would be the ways I go after a new job at this point.

I don’t think it’s realistic for companies to expect everyone have all that stuff online. I’ve only seen that from one person we’ve hired. He had a fancy website as his resume, a bunch of projects on there, and maybe a blog. It honestly didn’t factor into the hiring discussion much, if at all. He was also no better than any of the other hires who didn’t have any of that stuff.

Even with my anemic online presence, I’ve had a couple FAANGs reach out looking to bring me in for interviews. One seemed like I scam, so I ignored it. It wasn’t, someone else on my team got the same message, replied, and works there now. The other I replied to and spoke with the recruiter, but I wasn’t willing to relocate, so we ended talks there.

> If a future employer wants to see examples of my work, I’d really have nothing to show them for that reason.

I am not able to share most of my professional work, so what I do instead is bring in a USB stick with a portfolio of my personal projects.

I don’t have many of those either. Rather than coming up with, and working on, personal projects, I just worked more hours at my job. Most of my ideas have been in the context of the job. I spent the better part of the 10 years before the pandemic working 12-16 hour days. There wasn’t really time for anything else. Even when I was learning stuff on my own for my own reasons, ideas from work would jump into my head, and I’d apply what I learned to that, then show up Monday with something to show the team. Even on vacation, I would rarely work on anything for myself, and would usually return with a big list of ideas I had while away… all work related.

I have a couple small things I made, because I needed/wanted them, but nothing i think would be worth showing an employer.

Making projects just show potential employers doesn’t interest me. If I end up unemployed at some point, I guess I can cross that bridge when I get there and have the time. I have little interest in using up all my free time building projects I don’t care about for a reason that may never materialize.

> I spent the better part of the 10 years before the pandemic working 12-16 hour days.

Oh, wow. Then yes, our experiences are too different for mine to be helpful to you.

Those are ways to build networks. If you already have a network, they may not be necessary. Experienced developers with long work histories have networks through former coworkers and acquaintances. As you hint at the end of your post, that doesn't mean anyone can do without those things. If you're not at the point in your career where you have a large network built up, then you better set up the LinkedIn.

You get to choose what games to play in life, and how to play them. When I was younger and the internet was new and exciting, I had more of an online presence. I don't have a family and plenty of time to spend online, I just choose not to.

If the kinds of jobs you want penalize you for not having an online presence, then you have to decide if you want to play that game. Personally I have always hated jumping through hoops; I don't have anything to prove and am confident in my abilities. I don't need to broadcast my hobbies and opinions to the world.

So while I could probably make more money if I conformed to a different play style, I am happier playing my way where I don't do anything (including using social media) because I ought to, but because I want to.

Exactly. At a certain point in your career (and life) you get to be more picky, and start seeing jobs as a two way street. Employers who make candidates jump through unnecessary hoops will filter out some of the unqualified people, sure, but they'll also filter out people who are qualified but have no interest in playing stupid games with their time.

One employer asked me to take a long, automated personality test for cultural fit before we've even had a conversation. I scoffed and walked away with a polite rejection. That was enough of a test for both of us. I feel sorry for anyone who has to work there.

Another job had me do a long take home that was actually realistic for the kind of work I was expected to do (build data driven frontends). I loved the take home, did well on it, got the job and loved that too. It was a good test for both of us. Most of the jobs I've enjoyed were like that. Reasonable interviews and reasonable assessments that respect the candidate while still giving the company useful information.

The job/client I'm interviewing for right now explicitly asked for a LinkedIn profile. I simply told them I don't have one, but they looked at my resume anyway and scheduled an interview despite that. We'll see how that goes.

> One employer asked me to take a long, automated personality test for cultural fit before we've even had a conversation.

I've only been asked this once, and my reply was (paraphrasing) "that you require this already tells me that I'm a poor cultural fit here."

Heh, well done. (And much more concise than mine.)

Mine was something like (also paraphrased) you can't be serious, reference to rodents in a maze, incredulous chuckle, sorry you have to be there, no thank you, kthxbye.

It really rubbed me the wrong way. Even as a teenager interviewing for Starbucks in a group setting for a minimum wage job that started at 3am every day, they treated everyone with more humanity and respect. I don't know how this company manages to hire anyone at all. Maybe they're specifically filtering for compliant minions who never question authority. Shrug.

I'm posting this not because I disagree with you, but rather to just clarify one point you made;

>> Employers who make candidates jump through unnecessary hoops will filter out some of the unqualified people, sure, but they'll also filter out people who are qualified but have no interest in playing stupid games with their time.

It's worth noting that from an employer perspective missing some qualified people is not a problem (because they'll usually have plenty of qualified people applying for the post.) Whereas hiring an unqualified person is disastrous.

In other words given the choice of "reducing to a subset of all good" or "reducing to all good plus possibly a few bad" the goal is the former.

This can be galling if you are an "excluded good one", but its worth understanding this because being filtered out doesn't mean you're bad. (It might mean that, but not necessarily so.)

As to your main point, being compatible with your employer in terms of style (the interview works both ways) is important. Generally speaking the hiring process is often unrelated to the work process (for both sides of the table) so some discernment is necessary but I'm a big believer in "when someone shows you who there are, believe them".

> It's worth noting that from an employer perspective missing some qualified people is not a problem

Yeah, that's a great point. And helps with the two way street. It's a self-selecting match between employers and applicants who each are looking for particular things. At least when the employment market is healthy.

>> You get to choose what games to play in life, and how to play them

Absolutely. But you don't get to change the rules of the game you choose.

You can absolutely have your own rules to your own game. But naturally you can't expect others to play by those rules unless they want to.

My expectation is that I'm happy to be flexible with the rules, but I've figured out what game I want to play. I'd make a terrible employee so I chose the "own business" game. I'm not into excessive control so I chose the "hire good people" game.

My recommendation is to figure out the big things, and not sweat the small stuff. Be honest, but not overly picky.

> You get to choose what games to play in life

Word. At one point in my post-secondary education career, I rebelled against being present online as a Computer Science major. I rejected LinkedIn. I met like-minded people at school and got my first job after dropping out of school.

One of my good friends never post anything online. He rejected the game of selling yourselves to the employers altogether. He thought the game was meaningless and the prospective employers should see through her talent without the game.

After a few years, I became discontent in my job. My network was only from the like-minded people offline. Some folks did the job for decades and didn't see any reason to change.

Eventually I chose to play the game: I joined in-person networking events, signed up a LinkedIn account and created a web development portfolio. I had good job leads and learned about the companies and the positions through the events and LinkedIn. Note that LinkedIn was only for professional purposes: I didn't broadcast my opinions via posts or comments but simply clicked "like" for the connections' new job announcements. I got jobs that paid 40% more than my old one which afforded me to get air conditioning at home finally.

My friend still lives in her parents' home and has no career prospects for almost 2 decades now.

I'm an experienced dev with minimal online presence, so yes, it is certainly viable. Having zero online presence isn't, though. At the very least, you need an email address.

I ditched LinkedIn entirely years ago because it was nothing but a cost center for me, making me put up with an incessant amount of bottom-feeder cold calls and spam. Ditching it had no noticeable effect on my career.

There are absolutely awesome experienced developers with no online presence whatsoever. I suspect they are the majority

FWIW, in 20+ years of web dev, I've never had a LinkedIn or personal webpage. Got all my jobs by applying and interviewing, or through connections.

Upsides: No spam, no recruiters, don't have to play the LinkedIn hustle game.

Downsides: Never made much money, still in a lot of debt, takes months of looking and applying between jobs, can't reach old colleagues easily.

I wouldn't really recommend this approach for anyone who has a family to feed or dreams of financial success, lol. It's liberating, I guess, but has certainly made me a less attractive candidate.

I've reviewed a lot of CVs and I've never checked Social Media unless explicitly asked to by the submitter (e.g. running a tech relevant Youtube tutorial channel or blog).

I'd say it's more common for people to not have an online presence than to have an online presence. Working at a FAANG, the vast majority of social media from the employees I've seen have nothing to do with technology (probably for risks of saying something they shouldn't say as an employee of a publicly traded company).

I do know a personal friend who pivoted from english teaching to startups to FAANG and he was kind of smart. He made a podcast in his field, but when he became a manager at a FAANG, he deleted his podcast.

The most important thing in your early career is to work at the right places or the right opportunities. If you're early in your career I don't think your portfolio or LinkedIn is going to matter than much to be honest.

If I was young and starting out today I would focus on:

a. An internship if I was in college with a great company. It's the easiest way to get a job at a FAANG or whatever industry or place you ultimately want to work in

b. Contributing to some llm or technical crypto project where there's demand for people to contribute and you can make an impact because the market isn't crowded. Avoid the easy tutorial copy/paste stuff and push some code in a technically interesting and useful project. You'll learn a lot and make valuable connections as a lot of these people are usually established

If you have to pay bills, you can get whatever job you can find today, but while pursuing a & b to maximize opportunity. There's also communities you can join where you can potentially get referrals, but being very clear on what you want will help you tailor your experience.

Most "professionals" with an online presence use it strategically and are only showing exactly what they want you to see

You brought up a good point on this person deleted his podcast once he started working at a FAANG. When you worked for nobody, not many cared. A publicly traded company garners creates attention, whether malicious or not. It's safer to say nothing in public unless you are authorized to speak in a conference, to communicate with stockholders etc.

(If someone knows the URL of the podcast, they may still able to locate the podcast from Wayback machine. The episodes may not be completely gone, but they are way harder to find because such steps involves knowing you in the long term.)

I have never personally experienced needing to have an online presence or portfolio in a software developer job interview living and working in the midwest.

Every job I've landed so far in my career has involved a discussion about the works I am willing to post to my public Github (under this very silly username) along with a discussion about my work experience on my resume. Mind here that my Github has mostly retro emulators and games, nothing that looks like "real" work projects. My LinkedIn is barebones and my social media presence is almost nonexistent outside of my gaming stuff, and I prefer to keep it that way. Maybe I've just been lucky, but it doesn't seem like a huge limiting factor in my search. If nothing else, my projects are fun to chat about, and if the interviewer is having fun then you're off to a good start.

As a new grad, you likely don't have much of this portfolio built up yet, and that's where the in-person job fairs can help tremendously. They're basically an opportunity for you to gush about your student projects and impress the recruiters. Once you have actual work history, just putting that on your resume (accurately! don't make stuff up!) is the most important thing.

Yes, there are many senior professionals who have minimal digital footprint. Some possible reasons are:

* Working in one company for 20+ years and not needing to market themselves externally.

* Working in a regulated industry (banking, finance, insurance) where social media presence is frowned upon.

* Working in a niche where everybody knows everybody else already.

* Working in a government organization where keeping a low profile is expected.

* Being a specialist career contractor signed to an umbrella company or recruitment agency who does all their marketing on their behalf.

Thus, a small or nil online presence is not in and of itself a red flag. However, in all of the above cases, this low profile is mitigated by having alternative channels for finding work. If you aren’t already in that network, you need to find a way to demonstrate your experience.

You definitely don't need a personal website, blog, or even github for most jobs. If you're cold-applying to jobs online, and you don't have a linkedIn it will be seen as a red flag by some hiring managers - easier to lie/exaggerate about employment history, durations, title inflation, etc. Also more likely that you might be trying to work multiple jobs at once. LinkedIn doesn't need to be fully fleshed out with a ton of content or even any activity, but just a public list of companies you've worked at, rough timelines and titles, is enough to reassure most hiring managers.

If you want to go online-presence free and still be hireable then you need to focus on having a good network of folks you would like to work with again and would in turn like to work with you.

While that would be my goto choice as well, I have to admit that a strong online presence rarely factors in when I am interviewing candidates. If they have an online presence with projects I can look at, I certainly do take a look and it serves as a nice discussion point.

That said, I don't ascribe a lot of value to it (though, it's true, I never saw anything exceptional). I always make up my mind through discussions and a live coding session. I know the latter is cringed upon but I keep it really simple, more like a smoke test to see if they are not just good talkers.

I've, somehow, made it as a 'principal SRE' with very little in terms of social skills, footprint, or cultivation beyond Learning The Tech.

Someone like me who is just obsessed with a hobby can do well. Show up to work/be dependable, become known for it. The rest takes care of itself.

Conferences and stuff should be fun. They aren't necessary. Networking happens at work, other people will do it for you

i've been in the industry some 24 years. I have a github profile with some small home projects in various stages of abandonment. I have a linkedin profile that is up to date but has zero activity beyond that. I have no personal website and no public web presence beyond these and a defunct stack overflow profile I no longer link to. I have never struggled to get job interviews off the back of my cv.

While this is framed as a developer question, I’d suggest it’s a generational or even a personal(ity?) question.

I’ve been working for 20 years in financial services and tend not to put stuff online, aside from the bare bones. Connect only with people I’ve met, etc.

It’s intentional insofar as I think (or intend that) my opportunities will come from people I know rather than people I don’t.

I'd say that having an active Github and Linkedin account is a good idea. Github to show at least something, and Linkedin to collect contacts and skill endorsements.

Endorsements may seem trivial, but if you have a boatload of managers and devs endorsing you it does lend itself to your credibility.

I have LinkedIn for being able to reach out to former colleagues and as a place to record my work history so I have a reference when I need it for job applications. I have never posted on it, I don’t “like” things, none of that. Go months without looking at it. No other social media, nobody’s ever cared and I don’t even know what I’d do with it.

I haven’t had a personal website since I was like 15-25 and had the time/inclination to mess with that kind of crap. Nobody cares that I don’t have one. Most developers don’t.

My work’s all owned by the companies I’ve worked for, and 90+% of it’s long gone (often, the whole company’s gone). That’s pretty typical, never been a problem.

Only folks who have already made their reputation can get away with zero online presence. For the rest of us you need at least a professional profile (even new grads) eg. LinkedIn. Just don't mix professional and personal data and keep the latter to a minimum and access restricted. Getting "googled" is the norm nowadays and hence you need to make sure people find only what you want them to find. Psychologically, every piece of data that you provide about yourself influences my perception of you even if it seems completely irrelevant/inconsequential to you. Also the form in which you provide your data is very important and so your language must come across as confident but not cocky, assertive but not aggressive, factual but not tiresome, positive but not hyperbole, and must be designed to pique the reader's interest so that he/she actually reaches out to you.

I like the anonymity.

If I wanted an online presence I’d become an influencer - much better RoI.

Yes, experienced devs can have near zero online presence. The job market for experienced versus new grad is very different (for both employer and candidate.)

Naturally if you are experienced then you're being considered based on that experience. Be prepared to sell that, to be able to explain it, and why it's important. You might mention (subtly) that while others were doing personal things, and posting on LinkedIn, you were, you know, actually working. Ultimately your work experience matters more than your personal github.

I would add that LinkedIn is a good way to see job postings etc, so not a site to ignore from that point of view if you are searching.

Many extremely cool software engineers I knew had near zero virtual presence. Only couple of them had Facebook account (no photos, no posts).

They were either “too old for this shit”, or had no time for this or just didn’t care.

> The conventional wisdom for getting job leads as a new grad and early career is to go to job fair, have a portfolio and open a LinkedIn account.

Conventional wisdom isn't very wise. For college grads, the best thing is contacts. Is your dad, uncle or anyone in your network or your family's network or your friend's network a 'big shot' anywhere? If no, the second best thing is work experience. Does your college offer internships or work programs of any kind? If so, join it. Nobody I knew who had internship/work/coop/etc experience in college had trouble finding jobs. Most of them had full-time positions secured before graduation.

> Somehow I don't feel that I'm at a point in my career that I can ditch all my online presence and still get job leads.

During your first job build a contact/network list. You can use that to find the next job. Besides, a significant portion of jobs are word of mouth. For every open position, the manager usually goes around asking if his team knows anyone.

Most people I know don't have linkedin. It's only here where people act like linkedin is a job requirement.

Do you understand that the internet isn't that old?

Not that young either. Reddit is 19 years old, Facebook and Gmail are 20, LinkedIn is 21, Google is 26, HN is 17. That's a lot of time, especially for the modern fast-paced timescale.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com